Category Archives: Uncategorized

Enterovirus EV-D68

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We are a pretty holistic family.  We’re not anti-medicine, we just see it as a last resort and find that our mainstream medical community works best in the realm of emergency medicine.  We try to stay out of that.

BigGuy has a broad range of challenges, including an immune deficiency that makes him prone to respiratory illness.  Mama’s boy.  Because Mama can catch pneumonia like it’s her job (although in the last decade, only when EXTREMELY stressed–so maybe twice).  BigGuy started life with a collapsed lung (born a bit premature at 35 weeks, but the neonatalogist estimated his development was more like 32-33 weeks).  We passed on the RSV vaccine and he managed to avoid getting it.  He  spent his childhood with recurrent croupe and was diagnosed with Reactive Airway Disease (RAD) that the pulminologist assured us would turn into asthma (even if we treated the RAD–which we wound up not doing).

To be honest, we have kept BigGuy healthier than anyone thought we could’ve without drugs.  When he was 8mo old, they warned us to expect at least 4 hospitalizations each year.  At 10 years old, he has had one.  When he was almost 5, his doctor questioned that he had the immune deficiency she diagnosed him with (and that ordeal is worth an entire entry of it’s own, but let’s just nutshell it and note that we changed peds).

His last pediatrician in NJ attributes this to 1) how we eat; 2) his ability to sleep as needed because of a lack of school schedule; and 3) our ability to limit his exposure to MORE germs when he’s already fighting stuff off.  Big, big stuff.  Our kids drink water.  Period.  Outside of times of significant stress, our food comes from local farms and most of it without a label.  Eating out not only destroys our health, but it also destroys our finances–so when we enter those phases, they don’t last long.

About a week and a half ago, Girly ran a nasty fever.  We felt certain it was related to getting her 6yo molars–which we could see popping through in her mouth.  All. four. of them.  It explained a lot of weird things we had seen in the prior months–including what we thought was a migraine in her.  But she had one really bad night of fever and being awake, and then she was fine.  Not even congested.  We thought nothing of it.  Our hosts for the weekend asked that we delay our morning departure to get a strep test just in case.  We did, and she was cleared.  Off we went.

But while we were there, our son had a brief but weird cough.  I thought I heard a wheeze in it.  Despite his issues, he had never wheezed.  A while later when he yawned, I thought I heard another wheeze.  That was the end of it.  We’ve now been home almost a full week.  BigGuy and Papa were at a choir retreat ALL day Saturday–leaving the house at 7am and returning at 6pm… and then promptly joining us at a block party until easily 11pm.  Sunday night, around 7:30pm, BigGuy sneezed more times than I’ve ever heard him sneeze in his life.  Sneezing is our canary in the coal mine (for both he and I).  It’s the warning shot.  We all got to bed and Monday morning I woke to my Facebook feed including articles about ten states having contacted the CDC for assistance in investigating clusters of enterovirus–including Illinois.

I have to be honest: the last two years have been hell on my family as my untreated PTSD got to a point where I had to attend a 3-week intensive outpatient program last fall.  Every preventative care protocol we had in place has been shot to hell.  Our eating has been worse than ever (which is still better than many, but not good enough to manage an immune deficiency and two people with severe blood sugar issues on diet alone).  And the stress has been through the roof–which severely compromises your immune system.  To say that I’m nervous is an understatement.

We also usually step up our preventative care protocols about a week before school starts since that brings it’s own crazy germ-fest; and is quickly followed by FluMist season (which is a live virus vaccine that can easily be spread… but please don’t let me get on the tirade about the doctors almost never warning people to stay away from the immune compromised 😡  )

Needless to say, I need us to take it easy this week in terms of stress and exertion.  But I also need us to step things up in prevention.  For us that means:

  • Daily probiotics (google for research on probiotics and colds in children)
  • Daily dose of elderberry syrup (google for research about effects on flu and respiratory illness)
  • Daily dose of fish oil (more for overall neurological health and blood sugar regulation–because keeping the body in balance helps immensely)
  • Nightly slathering of Young Living Thieves or Purification on the soles of feet and in the diffuser during the day
  • Allowing the kids to eat up to 6 Zand’s Blue-Berries lozenges/day for their zinc content

I will also stock up for my reactive protocols:

  • Boiron Oscillococcinumis thankfully on sale through Frontier Wholesale Co-op so we will be buying two boxes of 30 in case we ALL get sick
  • Checking my stock of Young Living RC and Raven oils.  The RC has been a God-send for Girly’s post-nasal drip and put an end to middle-of-the-night vomit sheets and blankets.  The Raven is a heavier hitting respiratory warrior (pneumonia, asthma, tuberculosis).
  • Plenty of bay leaves, thyme and lemon juice for decongestant tea.
  • Epsom salt, baking soda and lavendar for foot baths and body baths.

It’s concerning that there was a wheeze where there never has been before.  On the flip, we’ve eaten pretty horribly and these things are strongly affected by diet.

Via con Dios, I guess…

 

IQ vs. Self-discipline

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Needless to say, a morning of scheduled schoolwork is bound to NOT go well in this house.  Mama gets all panicky and goes into teacher/project manager mode rather than Mama mode.  It’s like a flip of a switch.  And then when BigGuy does anything other than sit at a desk and belt out work as if he were in a classroom, I lose it.

Suddenly, he is 20 years older and a bum or a prisoner or living with me for the rest of his life and I’m hearing everyone tell me all the things he could’ve been “if he’d have been in school”… as if this trajectory could be backed by evidence.  And of course, if he enters now and fails miserably it will be because he needed to be in school earlier.  Of course.  Because ya know–it’s not like we had a reason to pull him out, people… right?  People don’t see that.  And those that do would say “But you could’ve put him back in before now.”  No matter what parenting decision you make, it’s just going to be wrong.

Whatever.  His complete lack of discipline or perseverance towards a goal (keep in mind that this was all his idea) make me LOSE. MY. SH!T.  I know what makes a successful person and it’s the ability to face a difficulty and take it on.  Even if you don’t overcome it, just having the ability to attempt getting through it is so huge.  And he completely lacks that.  And it’s so polar opposite to the person I am at my core that I cannot even understand how he will function in life.  Ever.

BigGuy’s IQ puts him in the 99.9% percentile of human intelligence.  This is beyond Mensa.  There are organizations that I didn’t even know existed for this kind of intelligence.  Sometimes, it’s hard to NOT see that he’s a bright kid.  But he also has Asperger’s and sometimes the connections between work and reward/success or other relational connections are completely absent.  I can’t bank on the neurotypical developmental trajectory that would say “He’ll get it someday… maybe at 22, but it will come” because for BigGuy, it truly may never come.  When he was younger, the therapists were so lost because there was no consistent “currency” to work with him–no consistent motivator.  There is no carrot you can dangle in front of him to bribe him; and nothing he loves enough to motivate him on his own.  Truly.  Now, at 10, there are definitely some motivators, but nothing that pushes him hard.  Even his strongest interests do not push him to do simple things if he just doesn’t feel like doing them. So losing his Minecraft time is not enough to make him brush his teeth.  I don’t think you can grasp the gravity of that statement.  It will result in a one-hour meltdown with begging about his being willing to “do ANYthing” to get his Minecraft time, but the offer to let him brush his teeth to get his time back results in him running up the stairs and playing with a Lego or his stuffed Tepig or reading whatever text-based material is within view.  And the reminder that this is what he needed to do to get his Minecraft time results in “OH YEAH!”, but no movement.

You cannot wrap your head around this.  I know you can’t.  And it’s not just frustrating–it’s scary.

I was so thankful to see Time put out an article that (at least a tiny bit) addresses this oxymoron.  Even without Asperger’s at play.  In their article “How To Make Your Kids Smarter: 10 Steps Backed By Science” they note that IQ is kind of worthless without self-discipline.

“Self-discipline predicted academic performance more robustly than did IQ. Self-discipline also predicted which students would improve their grades over the course of the school year, whereas IQ did not.… Self-discipline has a bigger effect on academic performance than does intellectual talent.”

How do you teach a kid to have self-discipline?  Seriously?  How do you instill perseverance?  We are not indulgent parents and there is a good structure to how our house operates.  We’re not helicopter parents nor permissive parents.  We facilitate our kids making their own choices (and having to stand by them as long as the consequence was foreseeable and not excessively/downright cruel or harmful).  Some kids are just not going to get it.  Especially those with impaired relational skills (and “relational” doesn’t just mean “between people” it means “connecting less concrete things”).

I’ve watched other kids with these issues in the schools and I’m not going there.  People like to tell me that I don’t know that MY kid will wind up like that, but ya know what?  I’m not rolling the dice either.  I’m watching a rather brilliant young man who is VERY similar to BigGuy pretty much fail out of high school for the exact same problems and a mother who has given up trying to find his currency.  I’m thankful to be able to see how his life is unfolding and seeing how removing the things he lives for or holding them hostage are doing absolutely nothing to move him.  Just like BigGuy.  I feel like I can learn from this and feel confident that this is just not going to be the route.

But I don’t know what the route is yet for my guy.  And part of me is heartbroken because I often wonder if the last 4-1/2 years of moving and my less-than-engaging/encouraging/supportive behavior have squashed any potential inspiration and motivation or willingness to chase after his interests with more fervor.  I can’t think about it.  That’s over.  We were in survival mode.  It happened and I can’t change it.

I just need to get back on my horse and leave it alone.  I need to focus on Girly.  I need to do more with her.  If he doesn’t want to work, nobody’s going to make him.  Not here and not at school.  That Cell Biology lab motivated him and I just cannot find a place like that for him to be full-time.  I ache for that for him.  Explaining to him that doing this work would get him to such a place is too far out for him to grasp.

Maybe his sister surpassing his achievements will be the motivator.  Because that kid’s going to knock it out of the park.

And really, if I go back and look at MY goals for my kids, I could give a rat’s ass about any of this crap.  But trying to meet his needs as he has explained them has been rough and it means doing this kind of crap.  Maybe I just need to change my attitude about it.  I don’t know.  I’m having “a day”.  And I love him so much.  I just want to meet his needs.   And hers.

As I sit, planning the week…

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It’s Sunday night.  Girly is out cold and Papa is giving BigGuy some reiki (more power to him because I’m so completely unable to wrap my head around that stuff).

Every Sunday night we have a family meeting.  The agenda is like this:

  1. What happened last week
  2. What is happening this week
  3. Old business
  4. New business
  5. Money stuff
  6. Something wonderful my family did for me
  7. Something wonderful I did for my family
  8. Comments/questions about anything anyone needs to talk about

As we went through item #2, Papa noted that he goes back to work this week and BigGuy jumped on the end of that with “and we start to do REAL schoolwork this week”.  I looked at my husband–whose eyebrows denoted his equal surprise.  He asked my son “Haven’t you already done ‘real’ schoolwork?” and I then took over so as to make my life a lot easier and said “Well, we’ve been figuring things out this August and then you had vacation; but we’re ready to get down to business now.” (I GUESS!!  *whew*  Nice save, Mama!)

But of course, now the pressure is on.  On ME!  GEESH!  This kid is no joke!  He wants to do some serious learning and I need to move my ass and get to it.  I just seriously cannot figure out how to accommodate Girly!  Ugh… I need to get it together.  I think I’m going to photocopy some of the pages from the Ancient Egypt coloring book for her tomorrow and tonight I need to sit down and lay out a daily time schedule so that I can work with BigGuy as needed and then work with Girly when I don’t have to work with BigGuy.  But I also really need to sit down and plan out HER activities, too.

Wasn’t I just spending the month of August trying to figure this out?  Wtf?

 

“I’m all about the bass, ’bout the bass…”

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So, when we moved from NJ to IL, one of the things that overwhelmed us was that the majority of people we met were Christian.  For a long time, our family identified as Christians and as a result, we felt weird but in kind of a good way: we were no longer the minority.  There were TWO Christian radio stations here and I quickly programmed them into the radio.  They were usually on in the car.  I didn’t have to worry about songs with themes of hooking up, getting drunk or dollah dollah billz, yo.  To be fair, even my beloved ’70s songs often left us in a pickle.  I have a really hard time with my fiery Latina’s favorite song being “Brown Sugar” by The Rolling Stones.  Ugh…

When we got here, BigGuy was 6-1/2 and Girly was 18mo old.

Our time and experiences here have forced us to better define our beliefs and we realized, we really WEREN’T Christians.  We are Bible-based people that use Jesus as the role model for sure.  We believe that the crucifixion and resurrection took place, but after all of that–we differ from Christians.  The major line in the sand making us non-Chrisitians is that we do not tie our salvation to Jesus.  There are other places we differ.  We don’t see God as a human image.  We don’t dwell on heaven and hell.  We believe that all people are inherently good.  We’re not really big on holidays because every day is a gift.  There are some other differences, but those are the big ones.  That makes us (for all intents and purposes) Quakers.  Our labeling has changed to better reflect the beliefs we have always had.

But at some point, BigGuy started realizing that much of what we heard on K-Love was not aligned to our belief set.  *sigh*  Maturity.

I’m not sure how it happened, but BigGuy took to seeking alternate radio selections unbeknownst to me.  The radio was often on in the basement while they played.  I simply had no clue that the station had changed somewhere along the lines.  Until we were out somewhere and my kids were happily singing along to some mainstream pop song–much to my surprise.  Suddenly, BigGuy was asking for a specific station in the car… and I was thrown into the world of music-with-horrible-values.  Not ALL of it, but a LOT of it.

A few days ago, while in Minnesota, our dear friend was lamenting about the music her kids heard on the bus and my husband chimed right in (he apparently hears more of this with the kids than I do… no clue how or why).  He saw her “I’m so fancy” and raised it an “I’m all about the bass, ’bout the bass”.

I don’t homeschool my kids to shelter them.  Seriously–I don’t.  But I do think there’s a maturity level needed to understand some of the concepts sung about in ALL songs.  Some just create a subconscious comfort level with concepts I’m not going to be happy about.  This goes both for Christian music and secular music.

Needless to say, I’m now creating a playlist of songs that I think are okay for where my kids current maturity level is at.  That’s not necessarily “clean” music.  It is music that might include some questionable stuff, but stuff I feel like we can have meaningful conversation about.  At minimum, understanding-of-the-concepts conversation.  And after seeing this video today of Meghan Trainor with Jimmy Fallon and The Roots doing “All About the Bass” with classroom instruments–I sought out the lyrics.  Outside of men needing more booty to cling to at night (a concept I feel I can explain to both kids), I was really loving this song’s sentiment that women can have curves and not be “fat”.  Plus, I always love a white girl that can carry a song with some soul and rhythm.

So here ya go… enjoy:

Our weekend in a nutshell

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BigGuy and Papa left the house at 7am this morning for an all-day choir retreat meant to introduce the boys and get them better acquainted.  Papa (thankfully) put out a forgotten box of CSA food that someone e-mailed us about yesterday to schedule picking up today.  So Girly and I “slept in”… which means “Girly slept and I laid trapped under her because I couldn’t fall back asleep”.  But it was nice.  It was so crisp and cool and all of the windows were open… it was just lovely.

Girly and I ate some of the deviled eggs Papa made last night to facilitate a speedy breakfast, and then I showered and we did Girly’s hair (for. an. hour.)  Then leftovers for lunch, a trip to get a Mama-Girly pedi, then we watched Robin Hood.

She has a soccer game at 3pm, the boys come home at 5, and there’s a block party on our former block that we’ll head to for dinner.

Tomorrow there is NOTHING. ON. THE CALENDAR.  Which is good because mama needs to prep for the week and we really need to preserve a LOT of produce.  Srsly.  In fact, I think we’ll be making another batch of ketchup because we just have so many tomatoes.  Cray-cray.

The schedule is coming together…

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So today, BigGuy went to his first Young Philosophers gathering and he really loved it.  And dude… I REALLY love that he loved it because THAT is what is going to make him THINK.  This week they read “Siddhartha and the Swan” and some other version of the same story.  Some of the questions included “What does it mean to be wise?” and then a list of challenges to their potential answers.  Holy moly–I’m thrilled.

Since the group meets 11:30am-1pm each Friday, last year the parents gathered on Friday afternoons to do local field trips since pretty much, the day is otherwise shot.  WOOT!  Love that!

I’m also really kind of looking forward to having this chunk of time available to take Girly to the library and just read with her.  ❤

I’m thinking that Fridays will go like this:

Mornings will start with usual routine of reading our “Character Building Day by Day”, getting dressed, eating, etc. and then BigGuy and I will discuss his review questions for Tapestry of Grace.  I think we’re breaking these up a bit over the course of the week so it’s not going to leave a ton to do on Friday.  I’m also going to go over and make sure all his other assigned work will be done.

Midday: Young Philosophers for BigGuy while Girly and I either explore nature or go to the library to read together and snuggle.

Afternoon: If there’s a field trip with the group–great.  If not, we’ll come home and do our weekly housecleaning since that will have to be done no matter what.

Evening: picking up our farm share.  We moved it to Fridays because Tuesdays were too insane.

I can’t lie that on one hand, I hate that this is the end of Papa’s vacation and I feel like it wasn’t a great one for him.  On the other hand, I’m really chomping at the bit to get into a routine already.  Especially since I feel like Girly is being “neglected” on the engagement front.

OH!  And I’m trying to dig out my Root’s & Shoots manual and PRAYING that it didn’t get thrown out (although I think it did).  😦  Doesn’t look like they produce a manual anymore.  (double 😦  )  I’d love Girly to be involved in something, but I’m not sure Girl Scouts is going to be “it”.   *sigh*

Oooohhh the back to school pictures

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I actually like this week as the last of my Facebook friends list sends their kids back to school.  Here in the Midwest, that happened last week and the week before.  But back on the East Coast, that happens this week.  Above is my “back to school pics”.  A friend pointed out the quintessential homeschool part: bare feet.

It’s not that I love the back to school pics.  I mean, I enjoy seeing their kids and all–but I see them in pics all the time.  It’s interesting to see what they’re wearing, but it’s not the “milestone picture” for me that it is for them.  What I enjoy is knowing that NOW all of the “I can’t wait to ship them off” posts are close to an end.  At least until winter break.

Thankfully, I have more than one friend on my Facebook list that actually mourns the back-to-school departure of their children.  I love them.  I love them for standing up and saying “I love my kids and I will miss them all day” against a cultural tide of  parents singing about it being the most wonderful time of the year and cartoons of blissful parents literally dragging unwilling kids to school.  Oh my God… WHAT have we become?

People will say “We’re only joking” but it’s not a joke.  Truth lies in jest.  These parents are as bored as their children.  They are worn out of the daily struggles and arguments that often take place between parents and children.  They are relieved to minimize those interactions.  They are especially relieved to know that someone else will impart the knowledge those kids need to get those kids out of their parents houses… quickly and efficiently with at least an average level of self-supporting success.

Some people will even say “My kids are as thrilled to be away from me as I am of them–they want to go back to school!”  Really?  And what kind of statement is that making about your relationship with your children?  Or about how they feel knowing that you’re all that happy to shoo them off?  Why WOULD they want to stay with you knowing you feel that way?

Long ago and far away, I was the parent with a child that I NEEDED to go to school because truly–the idea of dealing with him all day was a prospect I just could not handle.  I was in survival mode every minute that I was in his presence.  I was miserable and I was struggling.  I never felt like I knew how to make it right–no matter how many books or blog entries I read.  This photo pretty much sums up my days with my son… and this is the lightest of it (which is why I COULD capture it on film):

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BigGuy’s face: age 2-6

It was a daily exercise in knowing how badly I was failing at parenting and having that very in my face.  I hated everything about life back then.  I woke up with dread about what the day would bring.  I worried about what might get broken, how much yelling might occur, if there might be physical interactions, if my son would tantrum for 45 minutes straight at some point, hoping that if he did–it would be in our house, how many looks I would get from people around us who would instantly judge me as a bad parent… the list goes on.

His going to preschool filled so many voids for me.  I felt like sending him there might have been the only thing I was doing right for his future because they would at least be able to educate him to be a productive human being.  I also felt like sending him there made me a better mother because I got a break from feeling so completely worthless that it kept me alive.  During that time, I could do other things that validated my worth–even if that was just a matter of cleaning the dishes and doing some laundry.  Low-hanging fruits that were signs that I was capable of doing SOMEthing right.

It didn’t change the problems.  It just gave me a much-needed break from them.

We had gone through two years of intensive therapies with our son.  Fourteen hours/week (we were offered 20/week and declined out of sheer exhaustion and overwhelm).  Research, interventions (both therapeutic and nutritional), every moment being a “teachable moment”.  It was exhausting.  It was beyond most parents challenges of finding things for a kid to do because they’re bored.  I was engaged with my son at almost all times for a long time… and not in a loving parent way as much as a therapist/practitioner way.  He didn’t see me as a parent.  He didn’t connect with people really (at that time).  And we didn’t grow into a family.

I loved my son, but the situation was just a nightmare.  I was doing what I could.  Then it all changed.

In a nutshell, we found out that he was being mistreated/mishandled at his preschool in ways we really didn’t know about.  We knew he was “having bad days” but we had no idea what the school’s definition of that was.  This resulted in mutually agreeing to end a private school contract midway through the school year (for the familiar, you can see how bad it was).  We sent him to a school with a different pedagogy for the second half of the year and that went better but not WELL.  He was our only child at the time and I loved him so deeply.

When it came time for Kindergarten, the school situation was just NOT a good fit.  You find that schools do this with kids in the spectrum: put them several levels below their academic capabilities for the sake of them gaining other “skills” like relational skills or following directions (which would be easier if they don’t ALSO have to figure out how to do what they’re being instructed to learn).  It was horrible.  And I felt it was a recipe for behavioral disaster beyond what we were already dealing with.  Ultimately, a teacher I respected told us that we should just keep him home for his Kindergarten year.

I wanted to cry.

But I did it.

You hear over and over from homeschool parents about the profound behavior and relationship changes that come with homeschooling.  It sounds too good to be true–so good that you insist (at least in your head) that they could not possibly be dealing with the issues you’re dealing with.  But many of them are dealing with worse.

And you don’t have to homeschool to change this relationship.  But you DO have to take an active interest in engaging with your kids.  That doesn’t mean being in the same room with them.  Lots of parents say that they’re “with their kids all the time”.  Sorry, being in the same room as them does not equate to being ENGAGED with them.  I don’t mean to say you should be their buddy.  But it does mean taking an interest in them from THEIR perspective.  It means setting aside your agenda for them and really HEARING them without recourse about what you’re hearing.  It means spending one-on-one time with each of your kids–even if it’s just a dedicated 15 minutes each week (preferably each day) that they can bank on having with you to talk about whatever THEY want to talk about and you being actively interested in hearing them 100%.  It means hearing about Minecraft and at least pretending to follow along sometimes.  It means trying really hard not to say “No” unless you really have to.  It means finding opportunities for them to pursue their interests (and not being angry at your wasted efforts if they don’t want to do it).  It means respecting their input on what things they want to take on, and what things they feel they need to quit.  It means giving them a hug when they’re crying before lacing into the reprimand.  It means a lot of putting aside how we culturally handle our kids and seeing our kids and their tender hearts first.  It means understanding that they generally only operate out of love or fear–and trying to get to the heart of which it is, and addressing THAT rather than how that came out/manifested.

Connecting.

It doesn’t matter how you school your kids.  But your relationship with them or their behavior shouldn’t be the reason you don’t homeschool.  And sending them outside of the home to school doesn’t equate to offloading the work or getting these behavior or relational issues resolved.  They’re not in your face as much and it’s easy to let the goal of correction slip off your radar.  But make it a goal.

Life changes when you homeschool.  All of your life.  It’s different from the mainstream in many ways; but in many ways that you grow to be thankful for.  Especially where it concerns the bond between you and your child.

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Me and my BigGuy after Girly has gone to bed. We were reading catalogs. He didn’t even care–he just wanted to be with me doing something together at a time he’s usually supposed to be in bed.

The week Papa had off…

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And so it went… how does one actually do any formal learning when Papa is freely available?  Ummm… they don’t.  Srsly.

Papa was off last week and is off this week coming up.  The whole period of time has a long weekend in Minnesota to break it up, and as I type, we are still not unloaded from the trip home.  We got back with barely enough time to grab some dinner from Chipotle, then I ran to take BigGuy to choir while Papa took Girly to go get the dog from the kennel before her soccer practice.

Yeah.  We’re home.  And the school year has started.

I’m not really sure how much we’ll “do” this week with Papa around.  But I’m thinking it’s going to be close to nothing.  Last week, BigGuy did some math and foreign language and maybe a few other things, but not much.

Our annual trip to Minnesota also came with it’s share of challenges as the kids grow and enter new and unchartered territory.  I’m wiped.  And I’m bummed that I have books to return to the library before I’m done with them thanks to my floundering for the month of August; but c’est la vie, oui?

Sunday, Sundaaaaaaayyyy

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Here I sit… on my back deck… laptop, sunshine (although I’m in the shade of my crabapple), cool breeze, coffee, Girly hollering for me to watch her climb up the slide and get onto the trapeze bar THAT way…

And wondering wth I’m going to do with BigGuy this week.

Upside: I got a free digital planner (thanks to Educents) and inside, there were pages to set goals.  It was completely awesome and totally helpful.  Because really, it’s hard to lay out a plan when you don’t know what the goal is.

Seriously?  DUH!  I TAUGHT THIS!  FOR YEARS!  Geesh, I STILL teach it by way of teleclass!

So I laid out semester goals for things above and beyond academics, but then I also laid out academic goals by subject.  *deep breath of relief*

Now I need to get better at PREPARING.  Honestly, I’m REALLY loving the way that this program is forcing us into this Socratic discussion and BigGuy is really understanding that he needs to exercise his brain better.  Win-win.  But I feel really ill-prepared and I haven’t looked in my teaching binder for this stuff but I’m sure I saw some kind of prep for this in there.  :/

This week, I’m kind of returning to worldview and various faiths rather than our regular social studies/geography/writing/literature core from Tapestry of Grace .  Papa is off of work for the next two weeks and we have a trip to Minnesota over the long weekend.  So we’re going to take it slow and light.  I’m going to try to tackle “What Counts as History?” from Tolerance.org’s Classroom Resources page (which, btw, is AWESOOOOME).  Of course, that’s going to require some prep, too.  😉

Workload independence… #fail

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Remember back on Wednesday when I told you guys that BigGuy and I had plotted out his work for the week?   Well we just had our end of week meeting to go over his week’s work and clearly this was a bad idea as implemented.

Takeaways:

First, BigGuy cannot manage his time.  Ummmm… duh.  Seriously–he’s 10.  Wth was I thinking?

Second, BigGuy needs some learning about actual study skills.  Again… duh.  And above and beyond being 10, he’s not been challenged to learn like he’s being challenged now… so double duh.

Okay, okay… not horrible.  We’re just trying to figure it out.  But we will clearly do it differently next week.

Oh wait… next week start’s Papa’s 2-week vacation with a trip to Minnesota for Labor Day weekend in the midst of it.  Ugh…  Okay… I need to figure this out.  We have some faith and tolerance lessons to work on anyway so maybe we’ll redo that which wasn’t done this week on the reading front, learn some study skills and do the remainder of the faith and tolerance lessons over the next two weeks.  And maybe I’ll sandwich in a book on audio for the trip to and from Minnesota.

AND… he is not auditioning for the current show.  He would’ve missed 3 rehearsals and they said that missing 2 or more means they’re likely to get cut (you have to note any rehearsal conflicts on your audition papers).  We’d either have to miss our Minnesota trip and miss just one rehearsal or take the Minnesota trip and miss 3 of them.  I let BigGuy decide.  He chose to go to Minnesota.  I’m really kind of relieved.  I’m not sure we could handle the chaos of being involved in a show right now.  The parent commitment is really no joke.